After the overview of modern Intel and AMD
processors, there were many requests for a similar article covering the
graphics arena. "Arena" is a great term to describe the market,
as few other topics are as likely to raise the ire of the dreaded fanboy as
discussing graphics. However, similar to the CPU Guide, this article is not
meant as a set of benchmarks or to answer the commonly asked question of "which
graphics card is best?" Instead, it is a look at the internal designs,
feature sets, and theoretical performance of various graphics chips.

The initial scope of this article is limited to graphics chips manufactured
by ATI and NVIDIA. This is not to say that they are the only companies making
3D graphics chips, but honestly, if 3D gaming is your area of interest, there
really aren't any other good alternatives. The integrated graphics in VIA,
Intel, and SiS chipsets are, at best, disappointing. They're fine for business
use, but businesses don't generally worry about graphics performance anyway,
as anything made within the past five years is more than sufficient for word
processing and spreadsheet manipulation. Matrox is still heralded by many
as the best 2D image quality, but again, for gaming - the primary concern
of anyone talking about consumer 3D graphics cards - they simply fall short.
It's too bad, really, as more competition almost always benefits the consumer,
but computer hardware is a very cutthroat market - one seriously botched release,
and it may be your last!

However, not all ATI and NVIDIA chips will be covered. If the
Volari and DeltaChrome have issues with current games, the same can be said
of old Rage and TNT graphics cards, only more so. Even the early GeForce
and Radeon chips are too slow for serious gaming, but since they are DirectX
7 parts, they have made the cut. So, similar to the CPU Guide, all GeForce
and later chips will be included, and so will all the Radeon and later parts.
There are a few speculative parts in the charts, and figures for these can
and likely will change before they are released - if they ever do manage to
see the light of day.

As far as organization goes, code names and features will be listed first.
Next, a look at the potential performance - and why it often isn't realized
- will follow. There will also be some general micro processor information
and die size estimates later on, which you can skip if such discussions do
not hold your interest. Unfortunately, estimates are the best we can do in
some areas, as getting details from any of the major graphics card companies
is like pulling teeth from a crocodile. With that said, on to the charts.

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43 Comments

We can get some Matrox Parhelia action in there too to go along with the missing 3DFS =) I am wondering what 'Argon' is under the AMD platform (listed with the K6 CPUs). I never remember hearing an Argon codename or anything.
Sweet article though.
JasonReply